martes, 24 de junio de 2014

The business of financial
institutions is obviously to make money. But at one time in the not-so-distant
past university professors and do-gooders spent hours and hours explaining how
loans and other financial tools would help "underdeveloped" countries
join the select group of "First World" nations enjoying economic
prosperity, democracy and the benefits of the consumer society.

Yet you don’t have to have a
Phd to understand that money lenders are out for economic as well as political
gain.

Last Monday the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that Argentina must repay some $1.3 billion to a group of creditors
bent on making money out of money—a decision which might well represent a
severe blow to emerging economies dependent on international debt markets and
establish once again the political clout of international finance.

To put the story in perspective
it is convenient to remember what happened in the 1970’s when banks had
accumulated enormous amounts of capital. Instead of putting that money into
production, they handed out loans to poor countries, no doubt knowing that
paying back those loans would be difficult or nearly impossible and therefore a
handy tool for imposing economic rules favorable to multi-national business.

In Latin America during that
decade conservative ant-communist dictatorships snatched power from one country
to the next and almost in unison attempted to impose “free market” economic
policies characterized by scandalous debt taking. In Latin America indebtedness
from 1975 to 1982 increased four times according to Wilkipedia, from $75
billion to $315 billion, while interest payments jumped ahead by even greater
ratios.

In Argentina the biggest debt
takers were the members of the military dictatorship: the debt increased by
465% from1976 to 1983. Many critics say furthermore that many of the so-called
loans never appeared in the form of social or economic infra-structure
projects.

The democratically elected
governments which followed the defeat of the dictatorship inherited an enormous
economic headache, which led to an enormous economic collapse in 2001 and the
non-payment of $81 billion in public debt. The government offered bondholders a
haircut solution which 92.4 % of the creditors accepted and the debt payments
were made punctually. Since 2003, according to Argentine government figures,
debt service payments were made for over $190 billion dollars, although the
country had no access to international financial markets.

The 7% bondholders who refused
to go along with the deal, known as the vulture funds, bought up default bonds
at incredibly low prices in order to resell them at extraordinary profit.

An example of this
profitability is the case of Paul Singer’s NML fund: in 2008 it paid only 48.7
million US dollars for bonds in default. Monday’s ruling by Judge Thomas Griesa
orders that it be paid 832 million, for a gain of 1608% over six years.

The ruling of the New York
District Court orders payment of 1.5 billion dollars by June 30, although it is
calculated that the value of the total bonds in default that did not enter the
restructuring processes would take the figure to 15 billion, over 50% of the
country’s foreign currency reserves.

That would appear to push the
country into another default because if it does not pay the 1.5 billion it will
have to pay 15 billion in the immediate future.

Curiously enough, if Argentina
does not pay the vulture funds, the ruling forbids Argentina from making the
payments to the 92.4% of the bondholders who did accept the restructuring. So,
in the words of an advertisement of the Argentine presidency: “paying the
vulture funds is a path leading to default, and if they are not paid, Judge
Griesa’s order entails jeopardizing the right of the bondholders to collect
their debt restructured in 2005 and 2010.”

What would appear to be clear
is that giving out loans gives the financial institutions leverage to demand
the kind of economic policies which are favorable to the interests of the
prevailing financial and industrial interests. Thus, any attempt at alternative
forms of development become either pipe dreams or attempts to subvert the
financial world’s vision of reality.

sábado, 21 de junio de 2014

It's a balmy June evening in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Couples are stretching languidly and chatting on the green-green grassy knoll near the Swan Pond at Millersville University, as the sun plays hide and seek with the moon. Love is in the air--and in the voices of a pair of troubadours entertaining the spectators who are unhrriedly awaiting the opening lines of a "spaghetti western" version of William Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" presented by the People's Shakespeare Project 2014.
Sure, there are going to be complications. It is a Shakespearean "problematic comedy," a mix of characters and situations during which everything seems topsy-turvy. What's this abourt "taming" a woman? Isn't that a terrible case of "machismo?" Perhaps. But the action takes place before women's rights, when a lady had to defend herself with other weapons. And after the laughter dies out we inevitably begin to think about issues that concern men and women today.

OK. Maybe you are a bit sour on the classics. But under the direction of Laura Korach Howell there Shakespeare's lines are said with an enchanting Texan accent and the characters from Padua are dressed in cowboy fashion! That in itself is good for a prolonged applause and a horse laugh, because the actors go from 1700th century English to modern day Texan drawl with astonishing facility.
What's the story? Well Lucentio arrives accompanied by his servant, Tranio and falls head over heals in love with a mother's youngest daughter, Bianca--who due to her beauty and gentle ways already has two suitors and the possibility of receiving a generous dawry. There's a catch. The mother, Baptista, will not allow Bianca to marry until Katherine, her oldest and a very bad humored daughter is married. That could give way to a dramatic situation. But Shakespeare skillfully treats it as a comedy.
To break the stalemate, he introduces Petruchio, a young man bent on landing a wealthy wife. Why not take up the challenge of "taming" the shrew (Katherine) and collecting a very respectable dowry? There is strick logic to the script. Bianca's suitors are dying to help get the shrew married. So disguises abound as Hotensio and Lucentio pose as tutors to get close to Bianca. Tranio dresses as Lucentio and the Merchant as Vincentio, Lucentio's father.

To clench things, the real Vincentio appears on the scene amidst complete chaos. And out of chaos order, or a sort of evening out of loose ends. There is even what you might call a happy ending, but that depends on how you understand the series of confusing events.
The People's Shakespeare Project deserves a round of applause for recreating Shakespeare's play with great fidelity to the text and the vision Shakespeare had of theatre, while at the same time updating the show with the introduction of the accent and a western setting.

More information on the Project is available at http://www.peoplesshakespeareproject.org Email: info@tpsproject.org.

jueves, 19 de junio de 2014

Once a rich land known for its Amish and Mennonite farmers, Lancaster is today a cosmopolitan community embracing diverse ethnic groups. More than 40% of its population is of Hispanic origin. Many of the newcomers do not have a complete command of English and are in need of social, educational and medical attention. Around 1971 and to respond to that need, community leaders began to lay the ground for what evolved into the Spanish American Civic Association (SACA).

Today the association operates a center for retired people--last year they provided 32,000 hot meals--and there are diverse services from medical clinics to workshops, education for drug and alcohol prevention and treatment, mental health treatment, courses for integration into Northamerican society.

SACA has also had a radio station--wlch 91.3 fm--which has been in the air since 1987. It is one of the 33 radio stations in the country and offers a varied 24 hour program in Spanish and English. Recently Telecentro added a cable service for the community.

martes, 17 de junio de 2014

If you want to know how to make it big in the mass media, a good place to
get some crucial starters is waiting for you at Blue Rider Press: “The Last Magazine.” Unfortunately,
Michael Hastings’ fearless career was cut short at 33 years of age—by a tree—so
he is not around to give you the updates. Michael figured that journalism wasn’t
about rewriting press releases carefully edited in posh corporation or
government offices, or being “embedded” with the troops. He thought you had to
say things the way they were. That’s what “The Last Magazine” is about. His
wife found it on his computer following his death and rightly thought it was a
journalistic bomb.

Perhaps the reader remembers having read an article back in 2010
published by “Rolling Stone” magazine which, to say the least, caught the then
supreme commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan openly mocking his civilian
commanders in the White House. That’s not politically correct and Michael’s
caustic article led to the demise of the general. That led to the publication
of a previous book, “The Operators: The Wild
and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan.”

Hastings got his first taste for how today’s
news factories turn out products that seem to come off the assembly line, or
from the publicity offices of corporate moguls and political big shots when he
got broken in at News Week. Sure. You learn by doing. But also by watching.
Talking. Listening. News Week sent him off to cover the Iraq war in 2007, where
his fiancée and aide worker was killed in a Baghdad car bombing. That led to
Hastings’ first book, “I lost my love in Baghdad: a modern war story.” The
no-holds-barred journalist didn’t let that vamp his energy. He wrote for Rolling
Stone on the drones, did an
exclusive interview with
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at his hideout in the English
countryside, carried out an investigation into the Army's illicit use of "psychological
operations" to influence sitting Senators and a profile of Taliban
captive Bowe Bergdahl, "America's Last Prisoner of War."

"Great reporters exude a certain kind of
electricity," said adroitly Rolling Stone managing editor Will
Dana, "the sense that there are stories burning inside them, and that
there's no higher calling or greater way to live life than to be always
relentlessly trying to find and tell those stories. I'm sad that I'll never get
to publish all the great stories that he was going to write, and sad that he
won't be stopping by my office for any more short visits which would stretch
for two or three completely engrossing hours. He will be missed."

Opinionated and hard-charging, Hastings was
always pushing on for more and refused to cozy up to power. It is therefore
legitimate that clear minded journalists follow in his steps and—for example—investigate
the causes of his death. True. He was under great stress and was taking medical
marijuana, going back and forth between New York and Hollywood (where he sold
rights to “The Operators” to Brad Pitt’s production company. He also mentioned,
perhaps not very diplomatically to friends, that he was working on an article
about the National Security Agency. According to BuzzFeed, his employer at the
time, he complained that his friends were being interviewed by the F.B.I. and
explained to the magazine that he needed to “go off the radar for a bit.”

Then at 4:20 a.m. June 18th he was
killed when his Mercedes crashed into a tree while allegedly traveling at a
very high speed in Los Angeles. But……..why did police cover the front part of
the car with a sheet? Cars explode with amazing ease in Hollywood movies, but
reality would seem to be a bit different. You might go 100 miles an hour on a
super highway, although it is advisable neither for your health nor for your
pocket book. If were Michael and you suspected someone was following you, wouldn’t
you become a bit nervous? Maybe times have changed, but didn’t it used to be
that the F.B.I. was in charge of investigating federal crimes in the country
while the CIA was supposed to take care of the country’s secret interests
abroad? Oh well, the times they are a-changin’. Maybe the speculations about
some funny business associated with the death of Michael Hastings are all false
hearsay. Maybe. But doesn’t this whole situation make you think of George Orwell, the brave new world, 1984…And
then you think of Wilkileaks, Snowden, so many other cases and you conclude
sadly that Hastings’ death was a loss as well as a gain, a loss of a valuable
life and a gain for the heritance he left for investigative journalism.

Ben Smith, editor of Buzzflash, knew Hastings
well: “he was only interested in writing stories someone didn’t want to write,”
yet “he knew that there are certain truths that nobody has an interest in
speaking, ones that will make you both your subjects and their enemies
uncomfortable. They are stories that don’t get told because nobody in power has
much of an interest in telling them.”Was it not Christ who said seek the truth and the truth will make you
free? Unfortunately, often at a price.

domingo, 15 de junio de 2014

Wyeth
was opposed to the war but his bosom friend Wayne was convinced his duty was to
defend his country with his very life. They often argued. They disagreed. They
got angry. And then they made up. After all they were friends. But who can deny
that war is a nasty thing? Hadn’t the Defense Minister asked laconically
whether people agreed that “War is a dirty business?” That was the phrase that
ignited Wyeth’s sentiments one gloomy Sunday afternoon in a downtown bar where
he and Wayne, his best friend, treated themselves to a pair of foamy imported
beers.Wyeth claimed to
be a pacifist. The argument blushed his pale cheeks: “War is business, money,
don’t you understand?’ he wanted to know. “There are no just wars. Wars are fought
for territory, to impose a way of life, to get the natural resources needed to
feed factories, to open up markets, to evangelize and replace one religion with
another, to win and guess who writes the history books? Besides, who dies in
wars? Not the rich, not the politicians, not the lawyers…”

Wayne
was a gentle looking man with soft greenish eyes and coarse sandy colored hair.
He loved his wife, his children, his neighbors, he was a Sunday school
teacher and well respected in his neighborhood. He didn’t seem to be a
candidate for the war, but you never know. For most of their school years
Wayne and Wyeth had been bosom friends. But lately they had begun to drift
apart. Things came to a breaking point when Wayne decided to enlist in the army
and volunteer to join the military forces which had invaded Balkeslachistan , a
country on the fringe accused of harboring insurgents fighting to defend
archaic religious and social beliefs contrary to those of the invading army. Up
to now Wayne had incessantly defended Wyeth, even under varied and trying
circumstances. Yet now he was red with anger. His chest heaved and his voice
sounded cracked with anger.

“Don’t
you understand my dear friend? I love my country and I am prepared to die for
it!” He shouted to emphasize his point, slamming his beer mug on the wooden
table. All eyes in the dark basement bar whirled towards him and waiters
stopped in their tracks. Time seemed to have come to a standstill. “How many
countries have the freedom and democracy that we have? It isn’t because we want
to destroy their country. But we have the God given duty to bring peace and
prosperity to an oppressed nation. Our ethical obligation to God and our
forefathers is to intervene for the good of humanity. What if they dare to
attack us? God has given us the right to defend our way of life…and in doing so
we are bring them enlightenment.” He paused for a long moment, staring straight
at Wyeth. Seconds went by, or perhaps minutes. Who knows how long? At moments
like these the whole concept of time seems nothing but a fantasy. Out on the
street cars came and went, a dense cloud of smog blurred the sunset, people
scurried here and there with worry etched on their faces, far off a police
siren sounded, lovers entwined their hands seductively, a student was shot to
death in his classroom by a lone assassin, and a jealous husband clouted his wife on her
arrival from work, a 90 year old woman silently did her yoga exercises while
her life mate played his Stradivarius violin and a twelve-year-old girl
couldn’t find the words with which to end her love poem.

Wyeth
stirred his coffee in pensive silence, convinced that he should not get caught
up in his friend’s outburst, yet he felt caught up in the storm. His pacifist
convictions, years of yoga classes, fascination with breath control and a daily
routine of exercises aimed at warding off negative influences had taught him to
attempt to find positive energy even in the blackest moments. Yet Wayne was his
best friend and they were at loggerheads. It was Wyeth who broke the silence.
He stood up abruptly, called the waiter, paid the bill and strutted out the
door.

A
year and a half later, the local newspaper carried a story on the fate of
Wayne. He had been captured by the enemy forces in Balkeslachistan. “Sgt. Wayne
Johnston, a soldier respected for his patriotism and fighting skills, was
reported missing last Monday,” the paper claimed. “Military authorities have
given only vague accounts concerning the disappearance of Wayne, but our war
correspondent reports that some of the sergeant’s buddies alleged that he had
deserted…”

Wyeth
could not believe what he had just read. Tears swelled up in his eyes. He wadded
the newspaper in his fist, threw it to the ground and stomped on it. “Oh God!
God! God!” His best friend had gone to the war, had been captured, or perhaps
surrendered to enemy forces. If history often plays tricks on its players, how
often does life seem to contradict our most treasured plans? Wyeth didn’t think
twice. He took the first plane to Balkeslachistan, going through all the
customary frisking, questioning and ID checks travelers must endure to enter
the country. After checking into the Grand Hotel, he searched the immediate
area for a coffee shop and entered one with the air of a man of business. You
couldn’t walk freely about town and you couldn’t go into any restaurant or
coffee house without being caught in the military surveillance radar the
invading forces had carefully set up in the city. But no surveillance is
perfect.

“I’m
sorry,” said Wyeth motioning to the waiter, “but this coffee is awfully strong.”

“You
can help yourself to another cup if you go to that shelf near the kitchen
door,” the waiter said pointing a finger with a long untrimmed nail towards the
coffee pots.

“Thanks
so much!”

As
he was pouring himself another cup of coffee, Wyeth noticed a man with a
familiar figure on the other side of the sliding doors that separated the kitchen
from the counter where the waiters took people’s orders. He bent over to get a
better look. There was something about that man in the kitchen. He could barely
see him, but there was something about him. Perhaps it was a wild shot. Perhaps
not.

“Sorry,”
Wyeth repeated again, calling the waiter. “What time does this place close?”

“Oh,
we close in about an hour.”

Wyeth
drank his black coffee and then went around to the back of the building to see
if he could find the exit door for the employees. He waited there patiently.
When the man appeared, dressed in colorful local attire, he pressed close and
whispered into his ear.

“Backstairs,
Grand hotel, 7:45pm.”

The
man glanced at him. A slight smile opened up the edges of the lips momentarily.

“OK.”

It
was Wayne. Friends have a special knack for recognizing themselves. They
whispered in hushed tones for an hour on the footsteps of the hotel fire
escape.

“It's
not the right method. You've gotta do things the right way or not do 'em...Here,
let’s exchange clothes.”

There
was darkness enough to do so. Wayne put on Wyeth’s jeans and grey-black shirt
and returned to room 707. The next day he took the first flight home. Wyeth
stuck it out for a few days more at the restaurant, then turned himself in to
the military authorities. When the commander of the Balkeslachistan mission
discovered the trick the two friends had played on the invading forces he foamed
and raged, very much as the reader might imagine. But there was nothing
much he could do. True. Wyeth was an imposter, but that was a minor
offense which was later settled in court with a light jail sentence. Wayne
never returned to his home for fear of being picked up by the Army or the
secret service. The two men met up two years later on a delightful sunlit
beach resort in Bashfore, a small country which had been able to maintain a
carefully negotiated neutrality in the war. The two men strode towards each
other over the sifting sand and dropped into a long heart-felt embrace.

“I
love you and what you stand for,” said Wayne. I detest those people's beliefs
and traditions but worse yet is to destroy their entire culture in the name of
progress and with nameless atomized weapons.

“I
love your courage and honesty,” declared Wyeth.

Wayne
dug his feet into the sand. Wyeth smiled. A white seagull swooped down over the
salty waves nearby. Further off you could hear the cries of children dancing on
the waves. The TV featured a program on the war, with some experts saying
it had to end, others that "we've got to finish what we started." Off
somewhere in the distance there was a marriage ceremony. A man
said to his companion: “love is sharing all you have without asking anything in
return.”

martes, 3 de junio de 2014

The guy with the blackberry stopped in his tracks, observing the homeless man on the steps of a bank. "That's the man I've been looking for," he muttered to himself, "but I'll have to wake him up. If I give him a buck he'll certainly cooperate." So he touched the man on the shoulder.

"Hello there! I'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Oh...about what? Are you a policeman?"

"No, not really. Are you in love?"

"In love! I was, once. I'm waiting for another chance. It was great. We ate crackers and looked at the moon every night."

"Sort of. But it brings progress. Imagine what the world would be like without computers, without space rockets, without pilotless airplanes, without..."

"You make all of those things?"

"Just a few of them. There are a lot of guys making things. They need money and banks and workers and many more things to make things you could never imagine. That's what imperialism does. It takes raw materials from poor countries and turns them into millions of useful objects."

"Where can I get one?"

"One what?"

"An imperialism."

"Hmm. Imperialism is a concept, a way of organizing society. It's not something you can buy and sell. Anyway...I think you'll have to wait a bit."

"How long?"

"That depends...Oh, I wonder if I could borrow your bycycle."

"I'm sorry. It's broken. Could you fix it for me?"

"I'd love to but I have to get to the Board of Directors meeting in five minutes. Thanks for the chat. See you!"

lunes, 2 de junio de 2014

Tit for tat. You hack me, I’ll hack you. That’s the
way the cookie crumbles. Washington is outraged at China for allegedly stealing
trade secrets from U.S. businesses. Using a bit of everyday logic it is
inferable that China is riled by the snooping of the NSA. And Germany, a good
friend of Washington, and corporations, and your telephone, your emails, your…Snooping
appears to be the order of the day in the post-Cold War world. In this
espionage tug-of-war one thing is what you say and do publically, something
quite different what happens under the hat.

Recently the mass media paraded the indignation of
the Obama administration at five Chinese military sleuths who, according to an
indictment of the Justice Department, attempted to pilfer confidential
information from American companies.

Yet at least some of the victimized U.S.
corporations—doing great business in China—would not like the indignation to go
so far as to affect their flourishing commercial operations. Business
interconnects in the “globalized” economy and for the “big players” competition
for markets includes snooping. For example, according to the Associated Press,
Westinghouse is building four nuclear reactors in China; the Allegheny
Technologies steelmaker operates a joint venture in Shanghai; Alcoa, the biggest
foreign investor in China would certainly not like to give up its business
there.

At a time when the capitalist world is still in
financial turmoil, U.S. investors in the world’s second-biggest economy are
having a hay-day in China, a market that last year brought a nearly 50% take for
U.S. firms. They no doubt are concerned that Chinese hackers might steal some
of their trade secrets.

The exchange of goods between the U.S. and China
reached a record $562 billion last year and U.S. companies earned nearly $10
billion, also a record according to the Associated Press. Direct U.S.
investment in China is more than %50 billion. Significant also is the fact that
General Motors sells more cars in China than in the U.S. And Chinese companies
have become big investors in the U.S., where Chinese investment was estimated
at $14 billion last year.Yet here is little information available in the
press concerning the spying of the NSA in China. If the documents Snowden
revealed show large-scale business spying in Germany, there must certainly be important
operations also in China.

Big business in the U.S. is supposed to be private,
although giant corporations often receive subsidies, tax reductions and in times of crisis they
receive government bailouts. In China there is more scrutiny of the State, so
there is a blur in terms of the roles of what is private and what is state in both
countries.

One of the complaints of U.S. companies operating in
China is that the Chinese firms are given an edge over foreign competitors.
That charge supposes that in this globalized world foreign and local businesses
should be given equal treatment. Nevertheless, most developed countries in
their rise to wealth have imposed preferential tax treatment in favor of their
own business interests.

Often fiction speaks more clearly than “reality.”
The present world certainly bears strong resemblance to George Orwell’s “1984”
in which he says: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and
murder respectable," and then you have the technological mind control present in A. Huxley’s “Brave New
World.” Spying, long a secret aspect of political and economic struggles, has
now obtained recognized status as the modus operanti of the tug-of-war for
power in the post-Cold War world.